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"Dark matter makes up about a quarter of the cosmos, but we still don't know what it is. As part of a two-part series called Light & Dark on BBC Four, physicist Jim Al-Khalili pondered how close we are to understanding the mysterious "dark stuff"."

"Light and Dark" Starting tonight 9pm BBC4

You notice that Jim Al-Khalili says, "Dark matter makes up about a quarter of the cosmos", rather than if General Relativity and our current theories of the origin of the universe are correct, then invisible dark matter would have to make up about a quarter of the cosmos.

The two statements are not equivalent: senior scientists who should know better than to continually use definitive statements equivalent to the first one, because this reslts in very little funding being made available for young scientist's and engineers wishing to study the alternative. The alternative being that if General Relativity and our current theories of the origin of the universe are incorrect, then invisible dark matter may just be a briefly useful figment of our collective imaginations, like phlogiston or caloric proved to be. [Where the curvature of space-time is small, read Newton's Theory of Gravitation for General Relativity (e.g. for gravitational dynamics within galaxies and across galactic clusters)]

If you accept that there may be an alternative line of study, the natural question to ask is: How do we go about explaining the origin of the universe, galactic rotation curves and the motion of galaxies within clusters etc without postulating the existence of dark matter?

This is an interesting question to ask from an engineering standpoint (Using Newton's Theory of Gravitation) as well as from a physics stand point (using General Relativity). Yes it really is!, because I think it helps us question the often implicit assumptions we all use when studying dynamics. I think there will eventually be results useful to both physics and engineering coming out of such studies.

I can answer a few questions in advance of seeing Jim Al-Khalili's TV broadcast on BBC4 (You are free to disagree, Jim Al-Khalili will)

How close are we to finding dark matter?

I suspect physicists are just about as close to detecting dark matter here on earth, as they ever were in their search for magnetic monopoles; so in other words I don't expect they will find present definitive evidence for the existence of dark matter here on earth anytime soon. This is partly a personal opinion based on my wider knowledge and experience of engineering and physics, and partly based on the scientific evidence already in, from specialist dark matter detection instruments and particle colliders such as the LHC.

Assuming dark matter is found, will it ever be possible to build dark matter power stations?

Well if we could build a dark matter power station, the resulting mechanism would be more or less indistinguishable from a perpetual motion machine. Even if possible it is likely that this machine would need such an enormous gravitational mass, to amplify the background dark matter flux, that it would distrupt the all the man made and natural dynamical processes here earth, including the weather and the tides and as well as gradually distrupting the stability of the solar system. Who knows, if the dark matter collision cross-sections are much lower than physicists currently expect we might end up having to build a power station out of neutronic matter with a mass so large that it disturbs the dynamics of the entire galaxy. What an engineering project that would be!

Please forgive me if this appears in any way to be rude; I do assure you it is not my intention. I think this is one of your most intelligent posts.

As you say modern theorists place much too much trust/belief in what they forget is pure hypothesis (not the same thing as theory) and never seem able to turn the penny over and wonder what might be on the other side. To turn hypothesis into theory it is necessary to add a modicum of scientific experiment which, it goes without saying, is an impossibility in any studies Of Space or Cosmology. Naughty boy that I am I have long held a large question mark over Einstein's triumphal equation - it simply does not make sense to convert mass into energy; mass is real enough but energy is one of the imponderables so hard to define?

Dark matter is truly a matter of hypothesis dreams up as a possible answer to the behaviour of celestial bodies which circulate around the limits of spinning galaxies - how "on earth" can any genius perform an experimental confirmation?

We are on the verge of releasing my work to the Publisher; this is not the place for (of necessity) long dissertations but between the covers of my book you will find an alternative to Einstein's (in)famous equation which, could it gain credence, would explain away the need for dark matter.

Hence I must say that the answer to your question is most likely to be NO; you cannot derive power from a resource which does not exist.

To turn hypothesis into theory it is necessary to add a modicum of scientific experiment which, it goes without saying, is an impossibility in any studies Of Space or Cosmology. Ken Green

This is wrong.

Originally posted by: kengreenmass is real enough but energy is one of the imponderables so hard to define?

That's because you have a massive brain and a body that evolved to sense and manipulate mass. These senses evolved to deal with survival on earth, and the human brain evolved on the flat savannah of Africa a few million years ago. This is why mass appears "real enough" to you. Your senses do just enough to interpret the chaos of the world so we can eat and breed. We are reasonably good at sensing mass, reasonably poor at sensing the other imponderables of the cosmos.

Originally posted by: kengreenDark matter is truly a matter of hypothesis dreams up as a possible answer to the behaviour of celestial bodies which circulate around the limits of spinning galaxies - how "on earth" can any genius perform an experimental confirmation?

It would go something like this:

Hypothesise the composition and behaviour of such a material. Devise an experiment that can detect such behaviour, here on earth, or by observation at a distance. Compare hypothesis with observation. Revise. Go back to start.

This is how they found the chemical elements. Helium for example found in sunshine.

What you see is what you've got. That's all the baryonic material there is, no dark matter and no dark energy. All a figment of cosmologists imagination,
What we have is a dark invisible 3D electric universe force that permeates deep space magnetically. Jim did mention the background radiation of 2,5 deg.K that he considered was the remnants of the original big bang but surely that is in fact evidence of the background magnetic field??
Cllive

Much though I appreciate your regard for the quality of my Brain I will invite you both to provide an acceptable proof of a Big Bang! May I point out at that somewhat preposterous occurence is still in the province of hypothesis even though, in recent years, it has been thrust into the pretence of a fact?

The whole idea is all the more outrageous in that it is based on a strictly non-scientific abuse of the structure of OUR mathematics. When first I was introduced to the idea/technique of interpolation it was made clear that it is only rigourous when kept within the bounds of original measurements. Perhaps I'm wrong but the idea of the BB springs from the ridiculous idiocy of extrapolating from the present instant all the way "back" to the beginning of Time (to extrapolate to your own beginnings must be the superlative in Ooslem-birds?)

What you see is what you've got. That's all the baryonic material there is, no dark matter and no dark energy. All a figment of cosmologists imagination,

Dark energy of some sort has to exist if the universe is accelerating in its expansion. According to astronomical observations (including of Type 1a Supernovae), this is what is actually happening.

Logically the four main expansion options are: no expansion, constant expansion, decelerated expansion and accelerated expansion.

and the four main contraction options are: no contraction, constant contraction, decelerated contraction and accelerated contraction.

Since no expansion is equivalent to no contraction, there are in fact 7 main logical options.

Some of these options have been chosen in the past, but they don't agree with current astronomical observations. It is very difficult to see how astronomical observations (including of Type 1a Supernovae) can be interpreted in a different way.

What we have is a dark invisible 3D electric universe force that permeates deep space magnetically. Jim did mention the background radiation of 2,5 deg.K that he considered was the remnants of the original big bang but surely that is in fact evidence of the background magnetic field??

At the moment the cosmic microwave background radiation is interpreted as a distant remnant of the big bang. The vast majority of the radiation (from outside our galaxy) is thought to be arriving from the earliest time in the universe we can see. It is an almost perfect blackbody spectrum with very little noise and distortion added to it on its journey to the edges of our galaxy, by the intervening galaxies and interstellar matter.

If you try to conceive of the cosmic background radiation differently from this; as something that originates from every part of space simultaneouosly for example, then the signal we see would have to be an amalgam of a large number of different blackbody spectra's as we look back in time in any particular spatial direction.

This would mean that the blackbody temperature of every element of space back along a particular line of sight is at the same temperature as seen form earth (to under a thousanth of a degree celcius), and would have to be cooling in some physical way which can be directly related to the accelerated expansion of the universe through time.

The temperature of deep space would have to decrease with the increasing size of the universe, in a way that exactly matched the observed red-shift of distant spectra from earlier hotter times. I find it very hard to make sense of such a scenario. Why would measureable physical properties associated with each elemental volume of space be related to the overal size (and thus age) of the universe?

How is it possible for an intelligent person to try to defend, with verbal tsunami, the idiotic notion of expansion of the universe? No matter which way you present it it doesn't make sense; and when you try to use that expansion to support other idiocies that litter today's physics then I find it hard to believe that my recent new spectacles are not faulted !

To take your last point first: if the universe is indeed expanding then you must - I repeat MUST - find an explanation of how three bodies A,B,C in line formation can move such that A & C can separate while simultaneously both approach body B. I do not need to repeat, yet again, the basis of this question.

You continue prattling on about many of those other observances such as a bending of the impossible combination of space and time and, of all things, the origins of the universe. Our telescopes show us a continuum in which large bodies explode and dissipate in gargantuan clouds which ultimately condence back into a new generation of celestial bodies. Why do you need a beginning of this process and why do you need a daft sort of boundary within which this continual process cycles? If nothing else there are plenty of real puzzles on which to batter our minds? First things first.

How is it possible for an intelligent person to try to defend, with verbal tsunami, the idiotic notion of expansion of the universe? No matter which way you present it it doesn't make sense; and when you try to use that expansion to support other idiocies that litter today's physics then I find it hard to believe that my recent new spectacles are not faulted !

To take your last point first: if the universe is indeed expanding then you must - I repeat MUST - find an explanation of how three bodies A,B,C in line formation can move such that A & C can separate while simultaneously both approach body B. I do not need to repeat, yet again, the basis of this question.

Huh? If the universe is expanding, then A, B and C will all be moving away from each other. A and C will be moving apart from each other faster than A and B or B and C.

You continue prattling on about many of those other observances such as a bending of the impossible combination of space and time and, of all things, the origins of the universe. Our telescopes show us a continuum in which large bodies explode and dissipate in gargantuan clouds which ultimately condence back into a new generation of celestial bodies. Why do you need a beginning of this process and why do you need a daft sort of boundary within which this continual process cycles? If nothing else there are plenty of real puzzles on which to batter our minds? First things first.

A steady state universe has problems of its own. First, you have to invent some repulsive force that conveniently produces an equal and opposite force to gravity over long distances, or else the whole universe would collapse in a big crunch.

Then you have to invent a process that gradually sucks the energy out of electromagnetic waves to red-shift everything that's a long way away from us.

The 3-body question as expounded by me was based on Einstein's original brainstorming from which he produced an equation of gravity which consisted of two expressions. The first was a force of mutual attraction which diminished as the square of the separation and is easily identified as our experience of gravity.

The second expression concerned a law of mutual repulsion which diminished linearly with distance. But the two expressions together and you find a critical zone in which mutual attraction is balanced by mutual repulsion - i.e. a zone of zero gravitational-force?

My three in-line bodies are set just before we reach that critical zone; and so the first expression applies to the paired bodies A & B (or B & C) while preparing A & C are subject to mutual repulsion? The problem of course is to decide in the vastness of the universe exactly where, and in which direction, to start measuring separation distances?

I can show you a mechanism which can prevent the disastrous formation of a universal collapse and which predicts local alternating collapse with increasing temperature and expansion with decreasing temperature.

It is very difficult to know how Einstein would have explained the microwave background radiation as he believed that space was empty except for the effects of gravity and relativity. If he had known that space was not empty but that the inside of the universe was magnetized as evident from the 2.6degK background radiation; what would he have done then?
Further WMAP results have proved that there is another 5G times stronger dark force produced by some ?imaginary dark matter within a planetary system and a further strong galactic repulsive 23.5G force caused by some ?mystical dark energy.
We need new physics to explain these results based on acceptance that we live in an alternative 3D electric/magnetic universe which prioritizes these massless forces instead of ignoring them.
CliveS

I do not apologise for not agreeing with everything you wrote but I certainly thank you, not only for your support, but for making a sensible and reasoned post.

You are surely a little astray in imagining Einstein's reaction to the microwave background? What I wonder what he have made of the modern acceptance that "empty" Space is filled with strange little (very little) hobgoblins that constantly appear from nothing at all and as constantly disappear back to that (presumably) same empty space?

I am fully aware of my scepticism but I do not regard signals in our microwave receivers has being evidence of a microwave source be it a point source or one which is distributed throughout the enormity of space? I believe that it is more than time that scientists put their feet back on the ground and tried to make real use of the grey matter which exists between their ears.

The modern approach that we know a very great deal about the Universe and that we know it beyond any probable (let alone possible) shadow of doubt is about the most un-scientific utterance since Adam fell out of an apple tree?

Your WMAP results do not prove - PROVE - anything at all; such remains in the province of hypothesis and is doomed to remain there until sufficient evidence is available to converted it into theory?You may have gathered that I have something bordering on contempt for the "beauty" of mathematics - most of Man's contrivances are in fact ugly and never more so than when Ego drives ideas into excitement.

Ken
You are correct, modern physics is just trying to twist theory into supporting some past logic that has proved to be unsustainable. We need new physics that looks at the evidence and corrects the original model so that it works.
To do this we need to explain how and why the galaxies are spirals and more importantly why everything spins. Gravitation cannot make stars spin? but electro-magnetics can. We need new physics that prioritized a 3D dark electric force constant in space and balances the galaxies without having to invent non existent matter.
CliveS

Well, we do go more than halfway to meet each other despite the antics of this ridiculous engineering cock up which masquerades as a computer.

I've just had an example of the arrogance of young people who "know it all and are privileged to ignore anyone whose age exceeds 45". A fully qualified electrician, armed with bits of paper, has removed my simple toggle switch (which simply shorts out the contacts of a time-switch) and replaced it - in a different place - with a "remote control" gadget; he assures me that said Gadget will not fail and that the change was necessary because the regulations do not allow me to run a 240-volt cable in the same channel as two 18-volt cables - why the hell does he imagine I installed two distinctly different channels? His answer - he turned and walked away! So much for technological advance.

My book which takes a new look at physics has (in all probability) been sent to the publisher by now. It is great to know that at least one person will offer thoughtful criticism. I don't really understand the need to explain why galaxies - and everything else - spin but I do offer a credible explanation as to why the younger of them exhibit spiral arms.

That which will bring the ultimate wrath down upon me from the halls of academia is my abolition of any need for dark matter or indeed for the transient "beings" that are rumoured to flit through empty space. I refute absolutely that whatever goes on throughout the immensity of space has any kind of intelligent driving force.

Thanks Ken
Dark energy and Dark matter are just a way of trying to balance the forces in the universe so that it is not unstable. My objection to this approach is that we do not need fictitious matter to balance it just a 3D deep space dark electromagnetic force. Why make everything so complicated.
A dark E/M force of 23.2G will do, as this will force stars apart with a force of 22.2G which is what WMAP needs to balance.
Happy New Year
CliveS

The puzzle for me is that I cannot see any need for the universe to be stable; surely that which our telescopes are revealing is a universe which is extremely unstable - provided, of course, that you regard it on a suitable timescale?

As my age and very much post-career, I have nothing to either fear or regret by sticking out my neck!

Happy New Year Ken
Just spent Christmas studying dark matter and am of the opinion that we do not need dark matter or dark energy, All that is required is a dark electric deep space force of +/-23.2G to balance the universe completely.
See attached http://magnoflux3d.wordpress.com for full details
CliveS

Left my computer on while went for a cuppa on return it annouced that reboot not succssful? Suggested RESTORE - not successful either. Loaded IMAGE -faailed in middle of second disc. Now I lack an OS also.

Switched to backup machine b ut ha ve orgotten it for too long - flat battery! Spent last week rebuilding but can't get the Dragon Speaking prog to work - NO .- am not a happy chappie!

Agree about Dark Matter but eye already giving trouble - Book now sent to ublisher.

Left my computer on while went for a cuppa on return it annouced that reboot not succssful? Suggested RESTORE - not successful either. Loaded IMAGE -faailed in middle of second disc. Now I lack an OS also.

Switched to backup machine b ut ha ve orgotten it for too long - flat battery! Spent last week rebuilding but can't get the Dragon Speaking prog to work - NO .- am not a happy chappie!

Agree about Dark Matter but eye already giving trouble - Book now sent to ublisher.